


Strange Courtship

by nemo_r



Category: Zen - Fandom
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nemo_r/pseuds/nemo_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Amedeo called a meeting with Zen</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Courtship

Their first meeting since his -- elegant even if he said it himself -- blackmail, was at an art exhibit in a part of Rome Zen didn't usually visit. Full of penniless students and penniless artists. Often both. Skinny bohemians in loud prints, and tall, sombre aesthetes bemoaning the loss of innocence and decline of beauty.

Mara would have loved it.

Amedeo was standing in front of a large painting -- a mess of reds, almost painful, like the canvas itself was bleeding.

"What do you think of this?" he asked as Zen approached, glancing at him from the corner of his eye.

"Um." Zen stalled for time, trying to work out Amedeo's angle, not really in the mood for games after the day he'd had. "It's bright?"

"Yes." Amedeo tapped his bottom lip with one finger.

They moved along to the next canvas.

Zen began to study the other people in the gallery, wondering if they were going to be part of his new case. Sex and murder scandal. That could be it.

"This one?"

Zen looked back at the painting.

"Well, this one's dark."

Amedeo nodded, but didn't say anything and Zen allowed himself to think maybe that was it, maybe there was no case. Maybe Amedeo had simply needed someone to make inane comments about shitty art. Any moment now he'd be able to escape back to the department and the mess he was making at being Chief. On second thoughts, maybe he should stay here, pack it all in and become a penniless artist. He looked up at the next canvas, it didn't look so hard. Splash a bit of paint here and there... and he knew he could rock the all black look.

"What do you think of this one?"

"Green," he said promptly.

"Hmm."

Zen had a second of panic, had he somehow given away his thoughts with that one word? That was impossible, that was... shit, he was looking at him. Zen swallowed. "Different sort of place for you." He waved a hand to indicate the room. "Slightly more interesting than an underground car park."

Amedeo tilted his head. "I wanted a change of scene." He smiled thinly. "Don't worry, no one important comes here."

A tall, bespectacled aesthete, probably the artist, gave them a dirty look as he passed. Zen smiled back blandly. He was good at bland. He turned the smile on Amedeo. "I wasn't worried." Maybe his smile wasn't working so well, because the light in Amedeo's eyes seemed almost like he was laughing and Zen's jokes were rarely for sharing.

"No, I don't suppose you were." And now the smile was tinged with something that could almost be, fondness? It was gone before Zen could be sure, and he blamed it on his tiredness, and the cacophony of colours screaming from the walls.

"Did you want something? Do you have a cover up for me to uncover?" He leant forward mock conspiratorially. "Does someone need to disappear?"

Amedeo's face turned smooth and he stepped back.

"Shall we?" He waved a hand at the exit and they headed towards their cars.

"Ah yes. This is more like it," Zen said wryly as they left.

**

The next came two weeks later. Zen made his way between the stalls, counting off aisles, then battling through the press of bodies to drop into the empty chair.

The crowd bellowed suddenly, a rising wail of noise that cut off all his other senses. He was blinking blindly as it subsided.

He turned to stare at Amedeo, immaculate in his suit.

"Shouldn't you be worried?"

Amedeo cocked an eyebrow and raised his hand to cup his ear.

"Shouldn't you be worried!" Zen shouted. "Not very private!"

Amedeo shrugged , then leant right forward, suddenly in Zen's space, the rustle of his suit jacket against Zen's shoulder, a brush of curly hair against his cheek and the dry scent of his cologne.

"You're chief of the the department, Aurelio..." Zen shivered at the use of his first name.

"Acting Chief," he interjected, scrambling to get back the reins.

"...people expect to see you with me." Amedeo talked right over him. He leant back a little, to see Zen's face.

"Oh." Zen thought that over. "I suppose they do." All the more reason to pass this horrible job onto some other sucker and get back to being a detective.

Amedeo smiled that same, strange smile. It made Zen shiver and he wasn't sure why.

Then, the unbreakable Italian part of him that was watching the game from the corner of his eyes, despite the conversation, saw the ball sail, just past the goalie's outstretched fingers and... "YES!" He was up and shouting and every single person sitting near him was up and shouting, and Amedeo's face was flushed with triumph as he fist pumped the air.

They sat back down, Amedeo brushing imaginary dust off his knee. He passed a folder over to Zen. Zen leafed through it, wincing at the photos, graphic and detailed and oh, that one looked like the blood painting. He closed it again.

"So, you want me to- GET IT IN. GET IT IN. OH YOU TOSSER!"

He cleared his throat. "-To deal with this."

"Yes." Amedeo nodded. "Quietly," he added, leaning forward to watch the field.

"I have every faith in you." He smirked. "I'm sure you'll do an admirable- FOUL THAT WAS A FOUL. CAN'T YOU SEE?" He was standing and gesticulating at the ref, people around them nodding and lending their voices to his.

Zen had missed it, distracted by the curl of Amedeo's lips as he spoke. Amedeo sat again a couple of second later.

"Useless referee."

Zen nodded perfunctorily. They always were.

**

The next time was at Tania's new favourite restaurant, and he couldn't stop thinking about her as he waited at the table. He hadn't heard from her since she left to 'get her life together' and he missed her more than he thought he would. And he thought he'd miss her a lot.

But he wasn't going to waste his time pining. He had work to do, an entire department to run, in fact. Not to mention various shady jobs to carefully, un-shade, without anyone dropping him in it. He sometimes wondered if life wasn't just a tightrope walk between various vats of shit. Always doing your best to balance, and occasionally looking down to catch sight of the others who'd fallen and were barely clawing their way out of the muck.

"Penny for them."

Amedeo dropped into the seat opposite.

"Shit," Zen said unthinkingly. "Life," he attempted to clarify.

"Ah." Amedeo raised his eyebrows, straightening his cutlery carefully. "Personally I like to think of it as an instrument. Perhaps a violin." He looked up at Zen. "You tighten the pegs just enough, just enough..." He mimed plucking a string.

The imaginary note echoed through Zen's mind, pulling his muscles taut. He straightened a little in his chair. "And if a string breaks?"

Amedeo shrugged, a minimal movement of his shoulders under his pale grey suit. "Nothing is irreplaceable."

Zen stared at him. Then surprised himself by laughing, relaxing back in his seat. "Very good. Very you."

"I try." Amedeo's smile inched up a little into his cheek.

The waiter arrived and they ordered, Zen settling back to let Amedeo field the wine.

"You don't mind?" He asked as the waiter left.

Zen shrugged. "This it more your place than mine."

"Oh? I've seen you in here three times now."

"Thrice in a lifetime. Only coincidentally thrice in the last month."

"Hm." Amedeo brushed his napkin over his lips. "You have something for me?"

"I do." He took the file from his briefcase and slid it over the table to Amedeo.

"That's your end. He needs to disappear."

Amedeo raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, no." Zen straightened. "I mean, become someone else not..." He clicked his fingers.

"Ah, good." Amedeo was smiling again, Zen was pretty sure that _was_ fondness, and it was starting to freak him out.

"I should, think..." Amedeo clicked his fingers. "... is more your area of expertise."

"Yeah, you'd think that." Zen nodded, sinking back in his chair. He wondered if he should just leg it before he got sucked in any further. It was probably too late for that.

His feet knocked against Amedeo's under the table, and he drew back to cross them under his chair.

**

The fourth time, Zen didn't know Amedeo was there until he'd rushed into his office, arms full of papers, shouting an order over his shoulder to get Fabri on the phone, _right now, like yesterday._ And then he was turning and-

"Amedeo?"

"Aurelio."

That shiver went through him again and he really needed to get hold of that reaction before someone noticed.

"Why are you sitting at my desk?"

The terrible thought that Amedeo had taken his job didn't fill him with quite as much fear as it really should have. Mostly he felt relief.

Amedeo uncrossed his feet from where they'd rested on the desk and he swung them to the floor. Zen watched the long lines of his legs as they disappeared behind the desk. Then he was straightening and walking round towards him.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He came close and took the files from Zen's hands, turning to place them on the desk.

"What?" Zen was suddenly, completely, distracted by the curve of Amedeo's body as he twisted to look over at him, one hand still pressed against the varnished surface of the desk.

"Taking your job."

Zen frowned, still distracted by that palm on that desk. "Did I ask?"

"Your face did."

Zen consciously shook off his distraction. "You probably shouldn't lean on that."

Amedeo straightened. "Oh?"

And there was something in his voice that made Zen absolutely sure, absolutely, at least eighty percent sure, that Amedeo knew _exactly_ why he shouldn't be leaning on the desk... and found it hilarious.

Silvia poked her head in, to say Fabri was on the line.

Amedeo collected his briefcase from the floor. "I made an appointment in your diary." He pointed to the black book on the corner of the desk.

Zen nodded, and then Amedeo was leaving. Zen let himself relax, too soon. Amedeo paused, fingers curling around the door. "Miss Moretti's back in a fortnight, isn't she?" And his eyes flickered to the desk, then back to Zen. His face utterly blank, before suddenly splitting in a knowing smile. He slipped through the door and disappeared.

Zen dropped his forehead to the desk and thumped it twice... softly.

**

The note in the diary was cryptic. Just an address and a time. No name, no subject. Zen checked the news, even go so far as getting Silvia to listen to water-cooler gossip. There was the usual, a new secretary in Vice, apparently a pool on exactly how long Zen would last as Chief (the verdict? Not very). A couple of political scandals. Another of Berlusconi's girls hitting the news. But nothing that pointed to the Minister, or Amedeo, or him. Must be something very hush hush then. Great. That meant more trouble when it finally landed in his lap.

He finished up at work, as ever, one of the last to leave and navigated the streets as the sun was beginning to set. The address led him to an up-scale apartment block, all creamy sun-tinted stone, and perfect little balconies. He pressed the buzzer and was let in silently. Flashbacks to Nadia as he climbed the stairs and he was pretty sure that wasn't a good thing to be flashing back on. The fact that Tania's absence had him on that flip side from regular to sex to none at all, and the fact that Amedeo's strange smiles wouldn't leave his mind, were irrelevant. That wasn't what-

He pushed the door open.

There was a bottle of wine open on the coffee table, two glasses beside it. Zen pulled up short, the heavy shush of the door falling shut behind him.

"Have you worked it out yet?"

Amedeo appeared in the doorway opposite, and Zen's mouth went dry. He'd taken off his jacket, shirt sleeves folded up to the elbow to bare his forearms. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing a neat v of skin.

"Ah." Zen ran a hand through his hair. "I'm, getting there." He forced himself to stop staring at this strangely casual Amedeo, and glanced down at the wine. Managing to stay strong for less than a second before he was looking back at Amedeo. Gaze travelling up from bare feet (the sight sending an unexpected bolt of lust straight through him), then those distracting legs, narrow waist, white shirt (loose and un-tucked), rolled up sleeves, skin, arch of the neck, and of course, that smirk.

Zen started to walk towards him slowly. "I might need a little more, um, information."

Amedeo watched him, then, when Zen was close enough, reached out and hooked his tie free from his jacket, pulling him forward then flipping around inserting his leg between Zen's and moving in to press Zen back against the frame.

"How's this?"

"That's, getting there, yeah," said Zen, the breath knocked out of him.

Amedeo brushed his hip over the front of Zen's trousers and his eyes glittered. "Oh, I think you're already there."

Zen shivered, looking down at Amedeo, suddenly aware of the couple of inches of height he had on him. Then he was shoving Amedeo back against the door frame, slamming his hands on the wall on either side. Amedeo tilting up his chin and Zen was falling into the kiss, easy and fast and... _fuck,_ Amedeo knew what he was doing.

But then, he had from the start.


End file.
